If you’ve been reading closely, you’ll notice that there’s something special about that Icecrown Citadel preview that Blizzard posted: that at the end, even in the 5-man, players will ascend to the Frozen Throne and stand toe-to-toe with Arthas himself.

This has sparked a pretty big discussion that I’ve heard on a couple of sites and perhaps most notably on the WoW.com podcast, the WoW Insider Show, about whether or not Arthas should die when we face him. Do we smite him down like we did with Illidan, or do we redeem him somehow? Does he flee to return later somehow? What should happen when we face him?

There are a lot of mixed feelings about this, actually – some people feel very strongly that there isn’t anything left in Arthas to redeem, and that he should pay for his immeasurable crimes against Azeroth. They also point out, rightly, that Arthas has voluntarily allowed himself to be partially posessed by Ner’zhul, who was inside of Frostmourne before Arthas took posession of it, and that Ner’zhul the Lich also needs to pay for his crimes.

Finally, the other evidence that Arthas may not be able to be redeemed is the Icecrown quest line where the player finds Arthas’ human heart deep, deep, deep under Icecrown Citadel where Arthas discarded it long ago – and the fact that at the end of the quest chain Arthas’ heart is destroyed even though the player and Tirion Fordring had initially planned to use it to redeem him in the first place.

However, all of those events may not mean the end of Arthas, and it may not mean that players who face him won’t be able to redeem him somehow. The going theory is that in the 5-man, Arthas will battle the players and then retreat somewhere else that can only be accessed via the 25-man heroic version, and that’s where we’ll really see some action. He’s done it in a number of cases; he did it at the Wrathgate, where it was clear he was at least injured by the new plague that Putress and his ilk launched against everyone assembled to do battle there. We may even see more from the Forsaken faction that betrayed Sylvanas in the end, we just don’t know.

In any event, there are just as many arguments on the other side – that if Arthas can be redeemed that it could put an end to the scourge right then and there, and that a redeemed Arthas could be a valuable ally in the future, lore figure going forward, and even a major player in Cataclysm.

What do you guys think? Should we kill Arthas where he stands when we enter Icecrown Citadel, or should we find some way to return his humanity to him? Shout it out in the comments!

But over on the World of Warcraft Livejournal Community, lustyevilgnome has noticed something….different about the Undercity. Something….missing.

So, I’ve just been on the PTR…
Has anybody been to the Undercity?

If you enjoy the abominations, go and tell them “goodbye” while you can, because in 3.3 they’re apparently all going to replaced by orcs from the Kor’kron Guard. And they’re all pissed off about the whole Wrathgate thing.

Uh oh! Looks like the Orcs are still pretty peeved about what happened at the Wrathgate, even though it’s clear that Sylvanas had nothing to do with it and barely escaped with her own un-life. But that’s not enough for the new Garrosh-led Orcs – whether or not Garrosh officially takes the reins in 3.3 or in Cataclysm remains to be seen, but it’s clear that the Orcs don’t trust the forsaken one bit right now.

Combine this with the rumor that in the newly rebuilt post-Cataclysm Orgrimmar that Garrosh has kicked out all of the Horde races aside from the Orcs and the Tauren because they are the only two “strong enough” to represent the true might of the horde, and you have some serious faction in-fighting going on in the Horde.

What does it all mean? Are we seeing the breakup of the Horde, no thanks to its soon to be new Warchief? We’ll have to wait and see.

Blizzard hasn’t made the announcement in the United States yet, but up on the EU World of Warcraft site you’ll find tons of details about Icecrown Citadel, part of which is already live on the PTRs, and all of which is scheduled to arrive in the upcoming patch, 3.3 – expected to be the last major content patch in Wrath, setting the stage for a few minor patches to prep us all for the Cataclysm.

Given the speed with which we’re seeing announcements and testing from Blizzard, a couple of things are possible – either Cataclysm is much closer than we thought, there’s another planned content patch before the end of Wrath, Blizzard was listening to the people who look at the Trial of the Crusader and Trial of the Champion as somewhat drawn-out content, or some combination of the above. In any event, The EU site has a rundown on what we can expect in Icecrown, and what the 5-man dungeons and 10-25-man raids within will look like:

Icecrown Citadel will feature a massive five-player dungeon sprawling across three wings of the citadel’s foundation. While the Lich King’s attention is focused on the Argent Crusade and the Knights of the Ebon Blade ripping through the front gates, players will be tested as they assist Jaina Proudmoore (Alliance) and Sylvanas Windrunner (Horde) in infiltrating the citadel through an alternate entrance.

An epic quest line will present adventurers with the task of weakening Icecrown Citadel’s forces, requiring that players defeat the challenges in each dungeon wing before venturing into the next one. Normal and Heroic versions of the dungeon will be accessible to players, although each wing will be considered a separate instance; therefore, on Heroic difficulty, each wing will have its own separate lockout timer. All-new rewards — including item level 219 (normal) and level 232 (Heroic) loot — will be offered to those who destroy some of the Lich King’s most formidable allies.

The Forge of Souls
Serving as the first wing in this expansive dungeon, the Forge of Souls will quickly put players to the test of carving through the Scourge stronghold into deeper, more treacherous locations. Jaina will command Alliance forces, and Sylvanas will direct Horde forces. The goal is to ruin the twisted engines known as soul grinders found in this portion of the citadel, and then players can advance — that is, if the Horde and Alliance forces can overcome the foes who confront them.

*** Bosses
* Bronjahm, the Godfather of Souls: An instrument of reckoning, Bronjahm watches over the engines in the Forge of Souls. He must be killed if the soul grinders are to be destroyed.
* The Devourer of Souls: As the chief operator of the engines found in this wing, the Devourer stands guard over the souls stolen by the Lich King.

Pit of Saron
Accessible only to those who have laid waste to the Forge of Souls’ unholy operations, the Pit of Saron will bring Horde and Alliance forces deeper into the Lich King’s domain. Players who venture here will immediately be confronted by the lord of this lair, Scourgelord Tyrannus. But defeating him will not be as easy as it seems. Before they can present a threat to Tyrannus, the adventurers, instructed by their leaders, will need to free enslaved allies who have been trapped by the Scourge. Until that happens, Tyrannus will leave all adversaries to his minions, workers of the citadel’s mines. Perhaps the challenges here will lend clues as to the whereabouts of the Lich King’s private chambers outside of the Frozen Throne, deep within the Halls of Reflection.

*** Bosses
* Forgemaster Garfrost: A master of Scourge weaponry, the forgemaster hauls stocks of saronite ore and other precious materials to the cold forges where the mechanisms of death are born. With a host of rime weapons and exotic alloys at his disposal, it could get cold in here.
* Krick and Ick: Zombies serve as mindless muscle in the Pit of Saron’s mines, stockpiling metals for Forgemaster Garfrost, and Krick — a devious leper gnome — supervises the operations from atop Ick, Krick’s ghastly means of transportation.
* Scourgelord Tyrannus: Tyrannus is a terrible force who will no doubt demonstrate his powers to those brave enough to enter the Pit of Saron. The scourgelord must die if players hope to make their way into the third and final wing of this dungeon.

Halls of Reflection
With Jaina and Sylvanas leading the way, adventurers who make it as far as these frigid halls will quickly recognize the weapon that lies ahead: Frostmourne, the corruptive, legendary device of the Lich King himself. The Lich King’s private chambers are within reach, although they may be the death of anyone who ventures there.

*** Bosses
* Falric and Marwyn: Captains for Arthas Menethil in life, Scourge commanders for the Lich King in death, Falric and Marwyn will be summoned to the Halls of Reflection for one purpose: destroying all intruders.
* The Lich King: Sylvanas, thirsty for vengeance against the corrupted prince who sentenced her to an existence as an undead monstrosity, and Jaina, eager to find a flicker of Arthas’s soul locked somewhere within the Lich King, have brought their hand-picked allies to this final confrontation. Arthas’s true power may only now be discovered. Is there any hope in this mission, or does only death await?

Looks like we’re marching quickly to a standoff with Arthas himself. Does he live or die? Do we fnid salvation for him or do we slay him, Ner’zhul (who’s posessing him – voluntarily), and shatter Frostmourne where they all reign?

Also, does Bronjahm get his groove on? Does he remind us all that it’s a man’s world but it don’t mean nothin’ without a woman to love? (Bronjahm, the Godfather of Souls, is clearly homage to the late great James Brown, also known as The Godfather of Soul.)

Keep an eye out for more announcements as 3.3 gets closer!

Over at the venerable WoW Insider, Senior Editor Mike Schramm stirred up quite a controversy by pointing out something that’s been rumbling in the WoW community for a while now: should Blizzard get rid of/bolster and rework Vanilla WoW?

Now by “Vanilla WoW,” we mean all of the original level 1-60 content that launched with the game. You remember that stuff, don’t you? Onxyia and her whelps, Tier 1 gear, Deadmines and the Defias, Tauren fighting the Centaur in Mulgore, and of course, who can forget Barrens chat?

Silliness aside, there are two very diametrically opposed camps here; some people out there want Blizzard to open “Vanilla Servers,” where the level cap is still 60 and all of the content ends with the content released before Burning Crusade – a place where people can still wrap themselves in the original content without the treadmill rush to level to 70 and then 80, rushing through Outlands and then Northrend. On the other side of the argument are the people who want to essentially sunset 1-60 entirely, and make all characters like Death Knights: as long as you have an 80 somewhere you can roll a new character starting at level 55 anywhere. Some of those people even say you can limit it to a server – if you have an 80 on that server, you should be able to start any class at 55 on that server.

I can see both sides of this debate: there are those of us looking to gear, level, and armor up to assist our guilds with raids and instances, and for those of us who are looking to do that the original content from 1-60 is little more than a path to that, and at worst it’s an obstacle in the way there. At the same time, for those of us who really enjoy the original old world content for its rich story, lore, interesting NPCs and gameplay, the thought of removing it or otherwise toning it down or isolating it from the higher-level game content is abhorrent.

At this stage, with 2 expansion packs behind it and a subscriber base of 11.5 million people, all looking to play the game for their own reasons but many of them looking to experience the biggest and best content the game has to offer; the height of the lore events, the biggest achievements, to get the best gear and run the hardest raids with like-minded friends, or even to PVP and test their skills against other players of the highest caliber, it makes sense that they’d all be interested mostly in leveling as quickly as possible to experience that content.

To those people, old world Azeroth is a staging ground, a place they’re forced to return to for certain quests, and a place they don’t really care to experience because all of the content doesn’t reap the rewards they’re looking for. If you put auction houses in Shattrath and Dalaran, I don’t think many players would ever go back except for world events like holidays where people are forced to. To those people, it makes sense for Blizzard to offer them a way to skip that content entirely and begin new characters at level 55, the same way you can with Death Knights. Their argument is that if you didn’t have to level from 1-55, there’d be more people playing other classes and not just Death Knights.

Then there’s the other side of the argument; the people who think that Blizzard’s lorecrafting was best in Vanilla WoW, and the staging ground was set for a number of excellent world events, openings, content introductions, and roleplay that was perfectly balanced and well executed at the time. Those people would prefer to stay in that old-world content, rolling new characters and living new virtual lives easily between levels 1 and 60 without the pressure to get into Outland and then again to get into Northrend. To them, the expansions have all but diluted the game by forcing all of the players into new and smaller zones with less opportunity for story and development of the world that World of Warcraft is primarily set in.

To those people, the only way to reclaim that world for themselves and people like them is for Blizzard to either re-work the old world content (possibly using phasing) so it’s enjoyable at higher levels as well as lower levels, to introduce more high-level content into the old world, or to simply open a series of vanilla WoW servers where the game can only be played up to level 60. To them, it’s the only way to breathe new life into the content that really drew so many people into the game. The possibility of allowing people to skip it entirely, even in the form of Death Knights, is a slap in the face.

Like I said before, I can see things both ways, and I don’t really have a solution. I don’t think that Vanilla WoW servers are a good idea; they’ll likely wind up being low-pop or RP havens, and we have both low-pop servers and RP servers already where people can experience that content any way they like. The vanilla-WoW crowd could very well stop at 60, not buy the expansions, and stay where they are; even form guilds of like-minded people who want to experience the content in the same way. It would make more sense than Blizzard spending time and energy reworking old world content or building new servers exclusively for that content.

The “skip it entirely” crowd doesn’t have the best idea either – allowing players to skip old-world content all but ensures that content will never be played, and it ensures that players will never really get a feel for their classes or their abilities, or take the time to experience that old world content. They’ll only visit it in order to level tradeskills and complete certain quests. You’ll essentially wind up with a host of players who play like the eBayers did back when people still did that, and the content even in the end-game will suffer for it because the general quality of player will go down and the difficulty and maturity of that content will have to go down with it.

Mike argues in his post that Blizzard will eventually have to give us some kind of option to either power-level or start later in the game, as the level cap marches higher and higher it’ll be all but inane to make people level through it, and eventually that content won’t get played anyway – only so much as is required to level. I agree, but again, I have no specific suggestions on how Blizzard should do it.

Perhaps only allow someone to start a class at 55 if they have an 80 already? Perhaps Blizzard will eventually rework or add new Azeroth content specifically for higher levels, or add higher-level versions of old world content – just evolved to allow for level progression (the laughable “heroic Deadmines” idea, or the “level 80 Deadmines with Smee in charge now” idea). Perhaps Blizzard won’t do anything, and the onus of how someone plays the game will be left to the individual players – which is the best way to go, in my book. Blizzard provides the stage, let the players decide how they perform.

What do you think? Is Vanilla WoW dead? Should it be removed and everyone start in Outlands? Should it be modified to suit more end-game players? Is Vanilla WoW fine the way it is and more people should play it? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!

It’s been a few days, 3.1 is out and about, and in some places, some people have managed to tear through the freshly opened Ulduar and even down Yogg-Saron already. Impressive, but that’s not representative of the majority of us. So, how’s the new content patch working out for you?

Last night I saw reports of unstable realms, downed instance servers, and people unable to play entirely – although all of those could have been isolated and simply magnified by the Internet echo chamber. At the same time, I know I spent the majority of Tuesday night patching, and I spent the majority of Wednesday night updating my add-ons and making sure they all work. Maybe tonight I’ll actually get around to playing the game!

How about you guys? Applying glyphs without a Lexicon of Power, shelling out the 1000g for dual specs, getting a full refund of your talent points, signing up for the Argent Tournament, how’s it coming for you, if you’ve managed to play?

Ah, springtime! The flowers are blooming, the birds are singing, and Blizzard is cranking out a new content patch. Patch 3.1 is landing today – about a week ahead of my guess, and it contains some pretty serious changes. Among the big ones is the opening of Ulduar up in Storm Peaks; the introduction of dual specs into the game, some UI improvements, the introduction of the Argent Tournament, and much much more, especially on the front of class changes and balancing.

But before we start talking about the changes, let’s check out the Ulduar trailer, eh?

Yeah that’s sexy. Definitely looking forward to that. And did you see Rhonin go? I wanna be him when I grow up. And I don’t even play a mage!

In other news, all of your talent points have been refunded because of the introduction of dual specs and the sheer number of talents that have been removed or changed in the various class talent trees. Additionally, Blizzard has made some changes to improve armor penetration and haste rating, and have made some major changes to the way glyphs are handled. (including removing the need for Lexicons of Power entirely!)

Check out the full patch notes here to see all of the changes to your class and to the game!